


The Rage I Am (I Inherited from My Father)

by americanhoney913



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, F/F, Helena is the daughter of Ares
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:02:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24037072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/americanhoney913/pseuds/americanhoney913
Summary: Helena's mother tells her she was born of love, and Helena used to believe her. She saw the way her mother looked at her father, how they danced around the kitchen to some old lyricless music. How her father would always, always make sure to kiss her and Pino good night before he'd go into his study. Her parents exuded love.Until they didn't.
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 22
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of my Percy Jackson AU-ish fic and this chapter just sets the groundwork.
> 
> For those of you who haven't read PJO, essentially gods can bang any human they want and the product of that is demigod (or half-blood) children. Some children know their godly parents and others don't.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this fic.
> 
> Adestria looks like Alycia Debnam-Carey

Helena's mother tells her she was born of love, and Helena used to believe her. She saw the way her mother looked at her father, how they danced around the kitchen to some old lyricless music. How her father would always, _always_ make sure to kiss her and Pino good night before he'd go into his study. Her parents exuded love.

Until they didn't.

The blood tastes fresh in Helena's mouth and she's still frozen, even as Sal loads her into the car. Pino's toy car presses dents into her skin and there's something lodged in her throat but she can't cry. If she cries they'll find her and kill her. She's still covered in her mother's blood, still hearing the cries of her father as he tried to shout "take me but leave my family". He choked on his last words.

Sal opens the door and Helena wrinkles her nose. She looks up and finds herself staring at the International Departure gate of the Newark Airport. “What… what are we doing here?” she asks as Sal shuts the door behind her. She tugs at the scratchy shirt she’s wearing, some stupid Walmart shirt her mother would turn her nose up at. But her mother won’t be able to do anything anymore. Because she’s dead and the last of her blood is clumping in some dumpster with the remnants of Helena’s old life. The only thing left is Pino's car.

“You go to my family in Sicily. They keep you safe,” Sal says in his gruff accent, his English stilted as always. She glares at him. He’s the only person she knows and he’s sending her away. “Come. We get you ticket and on flight. My contact pick you up at airport.”

“Why can’t you come with me?” Helena asks as she walks next to him through the automatic doors. Her whole body goes stiff. There are too many people around her and she feels jumpy. Sal hobbles a little bit, his cane holding him up more than it usually does. She used to wonder why her father let a lame driver double as a bodyguard, but she’d seen Sal fight off people before when her mother went to her charity events and he didn’t even break a sweat. When they get to the desk. Helena watches as Sal speaks in low voices to the woman and her eyes go wide as the attendant’s eyes flash gold and slitted for just a second before she’s nodding at Helena and handing Sal a ticket.

“Here. Passport and ticket.” He hands them over and she stares down at them. Why did he have her passport on him? Did he know this was going to happen? She narrows her eyes at him, but he just shakes his eyes and pushes her towards the TSA gate. “I hope to see you again one day, _mikrós kynigós_.”

Helena doesn’t look back.

* * *

Helena lands in Naples, Italy after a horrible flight stuck next to two strangers and dreams of her family screaming in her ear as the bullets fly. She’s unattended but none of the attendants seem to care. Sal told her that his contact would be waiting for her with her name on a sign. Fear simmers low in her belly because this person’s going to be a stranger. She trusts Sal, but not that much. Her whole body feels hot and sticky, even in the Walmart clothes Sal got her. She’s got nothing but Pino's toy car and a black hole the size of her heart.

She sees her name on a piece of cardboard and stares at the person holding it. Instead of some beefy bodyguard that looks like Sal, she's met with a young woman. She has long brown hair that curls down her back, green eyes that look like they could pierce the soul of anyone standing in her way. Helena takes a few tentative steps towards her. She's about as tall as Helena's mother, but looks more like a warrior than a mob wife. As soon as Helena stands in front of her, she nods and turns around. Helena follows without a word.

She hasn't spoken since she left the States.

* * *

The drive from the airport to her new home in Sicily is almost as long as the flight from Naples to the island. The landscape flies by and Helena presses her forehead against the passenger side window. There’s more green here than she’s ever seen in her life. Livestock low from pastures and horses gallop over the hills, tossing their manes and snorting.

“It’s beautiful, no?” the woman asks.

Helena crosses her arms and scowls.

“Ah, a quiet one.” The woman chuckles. “Silence is good for what you want to do, _mikrós kynigós_.”

Helena watches as she turns into a driveway of a farmhouse that looks like it used to be a church. One man stands in the front yard, a rake in his hand, while another sits on top of a fence, scratching one of the horses’ noses.

“Today, you settle in,” the woman says as she stops the car. “Tomorrow, your training begins.”

* * *

Helena grows up learning to fight. She might have been eight when she arrived, but it feels like she’s been fighting her whole life. She remembers little of before. But she remembers the faces of the men who killed her parents, sees them every night in her head, and her mouth waters with the idea of revenger. She keeps their names, once she’s allowed to research, close to her heart. There’s only one picture on her wall and it’s the one she drew three months after she got here, in the old chapel, taking a break from training because of a long cut on her arm. Her first day without a training knife hadn’t gone well for her.

Adestria, the woman who picked her up at the airport, wakes her up before the sun is even a thought in the sky to do her chores. Discipline in the form of putting her in the weapons shed and making her clean every single weapon by hand with a wipe and a whetstone. At ten, she knows how to wield every single weapon in the shed. Ria makes her recite the stories of the different weapons, makes her list their uses, and exactly when they’re useful. She doesn’t know what kind of situation she’ll be walking into when she goes to take down the people who murdered her family, so any weapon will be useful. From throwing stars to spears, from guns to swords and knives. However, she saves the best for last. An onyx colored crossbow with arrows that know the taste of blood. She’s not allowed to use it… yet.

* * *

When Helena turns thirteen, she wakes up feeling like some kind of film has been removed from her eyes. It’s a birthday, so she gets to sleep in later than usual. She steps out into the sunshine and sees Deimos, one of her keepers, caring for their herd of horses. Except, she squints, they’re not horses. Because they have wings. At least, a few of them do. The others just look like regular horses. And, standing next to Deimos is a giant Mastiff. It’s about the size of a grizzly bear and, when it sees her, it lopes over in four long strides. It barks at her, sounding slightly softer than a gun going off next to her ear, and she winces. Its red eyes seem to glow almost unnaturally and a string of drool drips onto the floor next to her shoes, hissing as it hits the ground. Like acid.

She takes a big step back and Deimos laughs, putting a thin blue whistle between his lips and the giant dog beast backs up and woofs again. “So, you can see now?” he asks in Greek. He must be extra nice because it’s her birthday. “Good. Adestria will want to start your first Trial right away. Pick your weapons and meet me outside the shed.”

A quick trip to the weapons stores and Helena finds herself standing outside the dark shed leading into the ground. She’s got two knives strapped to her thighs, a longer one in a holster at her hip, and a few throwing stars in a pouch on her other hip. The shed is a mysterious place she’s walked by many times but has never been allowed to go. Sometimes she can hear growls and grunts coming from within, but no one has told her what’s in there.

Adestria meets her at the door. This woman has been her harshest trainer. Yes, Phobos has been teaching her to master her fear, to be silent as a hunter, to sneak up on her prey and kill it without a sound. Deimos teaches her to be the one her family’s murders see in their nightmares, to fill them with dread in their final moments. Helena used to fear the dark, but the two brothers would lock her in a room, playing the sound of gunshots until she no longer cried, no longer made a single sound, until she could sleep through the night without waking up screaming from nightmares. But Adestria, she’s taught her to kill, to hunt, to wound and maim and relish in the idea of her revenge. Turned her from bumbling child into a master assassin. Helena knows she has more to learn, but the scars on her body are becoming less and less as time goes on, as she learns to dodge and weave her way around her enemy. She’s learned the dance of a warrior, of the killer and stalker and bloodthirsty hunter.

“You will go in. You will fight. If you come out, you will advance in your training. If you do not,” Adestria shrugs, the sword on her hip clinking against the metal of her vambrace. “If you do not, your family’s murderers will live on. Free to go about their lives and cause more pain and suffering. It is of no consequence to me whether you live or die.” She puts a hand on Helena’s shoulder. “But, _mikrós kynigós_ , I have faith that you will survive to kill another day.”

Helena steps into the pitch black of the shed and the door slams shut behind her. She makes her way further into the darkness. Something in the distance snarls, roars, and there’s a smell of rotting meat in the air.

She makes her way through, one hand on the knife at her hip and the other against the wall. She comes across a scar in the wall, a deep thing and she can’t guess what made it. She follows it in the darkness. Finally, after what seems like forever, she finds herself in a round room.

Braying in the middle of it is a tall figure. There’s a tiny bit of light coming from a hole from above and her eyes adjust enough to see the creature for what it is. Whatever it is looks like those pictures from those “-ology” books one of the girls in her class was obsessed with. It had matted brown fur from the belly button up, two cow legs that ended in shiny black hooves. It was naked except for a pair of bright white underwear and long arms with bulging muscles. She stumbled back as it snorted, that rotting meat smell filling the chamber.

She lifts up the longer, curved knife at her hip and charges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you guys thought. The first two chapters are a bit time jumpy so we can get to the present (aka the movie). I hope you guys enjoy this fic. Next time Helena, and those that don't know the PJO-verse, will learn more about what's going on in the next section.
> 
> mikrós kynigós- "little hunter" in Greek (according to Google translate)


	2. Chapter 2

Helena steps out of the shed smelling like sulfur and holding the horn of the creature she just fought. She can taste some of its blood in her mouth, like rotten eggs and it’s black instead of red. She knows she’ll have bruises covering her body, there’s cuts and scrapes and she can feel dripping from her forehead, down her cheek. She licks at one of the beads and grimaces at the iron taste.

Adestria stands with her arms crossed, the tiniest tilt to her mouth that could equate to a full smile on her lips. She holds out her hand and Helena, not knowing what exactly she wants, hands her the horn she’s holding. It feels like a ram or cow’s, but heavier.

“Good.” Adestria nods. “You lived.” She’s not one for speaking or praising or mothering, but that little nod is almost as good as her mother giving her a kiss on the forehead or her father saying how proud of her he was because she’d just helped him solve an “adult” problem. She rubs her bruised knuckles over her heart, trying to ignore the pain of loss, but one look from Adestria makes her put her hand back down. “Tend to your wounds. Rest today. We will resume training tomorrow.”

Helena nods and heads back to her room. She sheds her dirty clothes and hops in the ice-cold shower. There’s no hot water anywhere in the building and baths are a rarity. And by rarity, Helena thinks as she scrubs herself down with homemade soap, she means nonexistent. Helena finishes up in the shower and wipes herself down with a towel. Once she’s all set, with a dagger on each hip because one never knows when an attack will come, she heads towards the kitchen. Her stomach grumbles but, instead of finding something in the fridge to eat, she finds Adestria sitting at the head of the table. Deimos and Phobos aren’t around, probably out with the horses, even the ones that can fucking fly, but there’s a strange man sitting at the table. 

The strange man is huge and muscular. He’s wearing black jeans, combat boots, a cool looking black leather duster with some knicks on it, and a red muscle shirt. He’s got a thick chain locked by a padlock as a necklace around his neck. There’s a bulletproof vest hanging off the back of the chair like it’s just another jacket. Casual. She puts her hand on the dagger at her hip. She just killed a minotaur, even though she didn’t even know they existed, and she can defeat this man too. There’s a giant hunting knife in a red leather sheath sitting on the table within his reach. It looks long enough to gut something the size of the giant dog outside. He’s wearing red-tinted wraparound sunglasses, even sitting at the table inside, and a strange feeling makes Helena pause where she stands at the entrance to the kitchen. His features are handsome, but in a cruel and brutal way, with knife-scarred cheeks and an "oily" black crew cut.

“Sit,” Adestria says and leaves no room for argument. Helena keeps her hand on her knife and her eyes on the room as she sits in the seat closest to the door and farthest from the stranger. Which is hard since the room isn’t all that big. The woman pushes something to her and she finds a plate with three small cubes on it. They look like cheese dipped in actual gold and they shimmer in the light coming in from the window. She narrows her eyes, but Adestria hasn’t tried to kill her yet. She looks between the stranger and Adestria before she puts one of the shiny cubes in her mouth. The flavor explodes on her tongue. It tastes just like the Amaretti her grandma made when she and Pino went to visit in the summer. It tastes like the rainbow cookies from the Italian bakery Sal would always take her to after school on Fridays. She stiffens and chews, trying not to tear up. Helena knows she’ll get put back in the dark room with the gun sounds if she cries again. She eats all three of the cubes and sighs as her body begins to feel better. The aches and broken ribs slowly begin to fade. She pushes the plate away from her and crosses her arms. Says nothing.

“You’ve done well,” the man says in a rough voice, as if he smokes so much he shouldn’t have lungs anymore. “Sal was right to send her here. I’m glad he kept in contact.” He flexes his arms and one of his tattoos, one of a vulture, moves. Flutters its wings and gives a wordless protest to being moved. 

“You can doubt Deimos and Phobos all you want,” Adestria responds, shaking her head. “But never doubt me.”

He chuckles and Helena’s surprised he doesn’t cough up blood. “I never doubted you. This one could almost be your twin.” Helena wrinkles her nose. She and Adestria look nothing alike. “You look good, kid. Strong. Tough.” He laughs again. “I heard you just took down your first minotaur. Good job.” He doesn’t know her, but he’s acting like he does… and she doesn’t like it. But she hasn’t heard praise like this since her father saw her solar system project in fourth grade. It’s an odd feeling, the little kernel that pops when this man praises her. She hates it.

“Why do you care?” she snarls, digging her nails into the supple leather of the knife sheath at her hip.

“Well, as your father, I think I have a--” He stops talking because Helena launches herself out of her chair and puts her knife to his throat. Not yet cutting into the skin, but the threat is there. Nobody else in the room moves. “That rage is impressive.”

“My father died four years ago,” Helena snarls. “My mother and my father and my little brother and everyone else. They all died. I’m going to avenge them. You’re not my father.”

The stranger actually leans into her knife and cuts into his own skin. Instead of red blood, a drop of golden liquid dribbles from his neck. She pulls back, eyes wide. She can’t see his eyes through the sunglasses, but he sighs and closes them, pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Franco was an amazing man,” he says and his voice sounds almost tired. “I only met him once, but the way he looked at Maria. The way he looked at you.” His hand falls onto the table and he curls it into a fist. The muscles bulge and he looks like he could crush a watermelon with a single twitch. Something burns behind his glasses, like his eyes are actually on fire, not just metaphorically. Helena moves back and watches with wide eyes as the cut on this strange man’s neck heals before her eyes, sealing like a zipper and leaving no scar. “If I was allowed to, I would kill them men who did this myself. But my father forbids it.”

Adestria nods and throws one of her braids over her shoulders. She’s always going on and on about how having short hair helps during fights, has made Helena keep her hair shoulder length or shorter, but refuses to cut her own. Instead there’s intricate braids through her hair. With the added kohl around her eyes, she always looks fierce. “That’s why Helena’s been training.” She looks at Helena, that small smile back. “Revenge runs in the family.”

“We’re not family!” Helena shouts and stands up, kicks back her chair. “My family is dead.”

The stranger pulls his sunglasses off and Helena stands her ground even though all she wants to do is run. But she can’t. She’s learning to master her fear, to push it down until it no longer exists. Phobos had beaten the fear out of her. She knows that the minotaur in the shed was only the first of her trials and she can’t be scared of whatever comes. He sets the sunglasses on the table and looks right at her.

Those are not eyes, Helena thinks; they look like coals, red hot and on fire. She can’t tell his exact emotion because his eyes are fucking coals. She feels that thin slide of fear down her spine but she doesn’t let it show.

“You ever wonder why you could break a kid’s arm just by punching their shoulder?” he asks. “Why you always had that little kernel of rage in your gut, kid?” He taps his finger against the table. “God, you might look like your mother, but you’ve got my temper.”

“I don’t even know who you are,” Helena snarls. She can’t seem to stop snarling. The rage bubbling up inside her responding to the man sitting calmly there. “I don’t know what is happening to me but it sure as shit ain’t puberty.” She knows all about that, Adestria gave her the rundown. No matter how uncomfortable it was. She endured it just like she endured everything else put in front of her. Now that includes a minotaur and a coal-eyed beef man.

The man holds out his hand, waiting for Helena to shake it. 

“Ares, god of war,” he tells her with a smile on his face, the coals of his eyes lighting up with fire. “Nice to meet you, Helena.”

* * *

When Helena turns fifteen, Ares comes to visit for her birthday. He’s still a stranger and she doesn’t warm up to him, but she accepts his help with training every now and then. When she comes out of the shed again, this time with a hole in her stretch pants, still sizzling from the basilisk’s acid, he’s there with Adestria. The woman always waits for her to come out and always gives her a nod and smile, the tiniest spark of pride in her eyes. The monsters inside the shed have been getting harder and harder. She’s not told what she’ll be fighting, has to figure out the tricks as she goes. Think on her feet, just like she’ll have to do back in Gotham.

“Take an ambrosia cube and wrap that acid burn,” Ares says. “Then I’m taking you to Rome. We’ve got some business there.”

She looks to Adestria, who just shrugs. Helena knows Ares won’t kill her, might keep her safe if she doesn’t piss him off, and they both know how to fight if they get into some deep shit. So she fixes herself up, puts a few of her more subtle knives in pockets and other places.

Ares has a really cool bike, even if Helena won’t admit it to him. He keeps bragging about his war chariot, but all she sees is the most tricked out motorcycle she’s ever seen. It’s the size of a baby elephant, “although mortals will just see it as a normal motorcycle,” with a flame pattern on the gas tanks. The seat looks almost skin-like, but she doesn’t want to think about that. To top it off, there’s loaded shotgun holsters riveted to the motorcycle's sides.

“How are we gonna take this thing all the way to Rome?” Helena asks as Ares slaps a helmet onto her head. She’s still getting used to having a father that’s still alive. It’s hard to swallow that she’s not fully human, that more exists beyond the human spectrum of sight. Adestria and Ares, even the two brothers, told her about the Mist, which twists mortals’ sight to see monsters and other godly things as commonplace things, animals, or humans.

“Just trust me, kid,” Ares, “we’ll get there.” He smacks his motorcycle and she climbs on behind him. Adestria waves and, with a roar, the motorcycle roars to life. Helena clings to his back.

As soon as the ride starts, it’s over. One minute they’re in Sicily, the next they’re in Rome. In a back alley that looks sketchy as fuck, Ares parks the motorcycle and pulls off his helmet. “Come on,” he says as Helena slides off the huge bike and puts her own helmet away in the compartment. “We’ve got things to do today.”

Helena stills. Ares might not be the best father, but he seems to be trying to at least be there. He comes to visit on birthdays, gives her tips on exactly how to kill certain creatures while he can. He’s even sparred with her before… and she has the scars to prove it. It’s still odd to think that she has a father, after seeing the man she thinks of as a father shot down with bullets.

Ares leads her to a little hole in the wall, literally, and it shimmers as they pass through it. She pauses before she takes a deep breath and follows him.

On the other side, she finds herself in a tattoo parlor that doubles as a bar that triples as a weapons store. There’s a man standing behind the weapons counter, cleaning a curved dagger that looked sharp enough to cut his thumb off with just a quick jolt. He’s got red hair and looks like the beast from the Disney movie, but if he got stuck between beast and man. There’s hair everywhere, thick and shaggy. There’s streaks of oil and grease on the mechanic’s jumpsuit he’s wearing and, if Helena strains her neck, she can see a bronze hammer swinging from his hip.

He looks up when Ares knocks his knuckles against the counter. “What’re you doing here, you son of a bitch?” he growls. He points the dagger at Ares and Helena puts her hand on her knife. “Come to brag about fucking my wife again?” 

Ares chuckles. “You know, if you’re gonna call me a son of a bitch, you’re insulting your own mother too, Hephaestus.”

The greasy man scowls, his eyes scanning over Ares before he moves to Helena. “Who’s this? Another one of yours?”

“My name is Helena,” she says. She doesn’t need to be babied or talked down to.

Ares chuckles. “She’s probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to having another Adestria.” He taps the glass countertop again. “Fifteenth birthday. We’re here to get her a  _ tatouáz _ and a special weapon.” Helena’s eyes shoot to Ares. He’s never given her anything before. Sure, advice and scars and tips, but never anything tangible.

“And why should I help you?” Hephaestus scowls.

“Because I’ll actually pay for it this time,” Ares responds.

“Fine” Hephaestus grumbles, “but I’m charging you extra.”

* * *

Helena walks out of the alley with a stinging ankle and the most beautiful crossbow she’s ever seen. It’s black, is accurate as fuck, and will actually shrink down to a hairclip. So she can actually hide it when she’s trying to sneak up on someone or even going through security. 

“Happy birthday, kid,” Ares says as he drops her off back at the farm. “Hope that crossbow comes in handy during your revenge plot.” He chuckles and puts a hand on her shoulder. It’s still the size of her head, but she’s shot up in the past few years. Now she can look at his chin rather than his chest when they stand face to face.

“Uh, thanks?” It comes out as a question rather than a statement. She shudders as the ache on her ankle migrates to her hand. She looks down and sees the coral snake tattoo she got from Hephestus winding around her wrist. Apparently, ambrosia-infused ink will allow tattoos to move instead of static mortal tattoos.

“Don’t get used to it.” He flicks the clip in her hair, the one with alligator teeth that will become her crossbow if she unclips it. “You’ve got some tough stuff coming up before Adrestia will let you go back to Gotham. So you train hard. Next time I hear from you, I want it to be that you killed all the people that killed your family.”

She nods and watches as he rides away on his motorcycle. Tomorrow will be another day of training, but at least she has a cool crossbow and a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end of Helena's pre-movie chapters. Next time, we'll find Helena and the others at the Booby Trap.
> 
> tatouáz- tattoo in Greek


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Booby Trap time!

The second that her bolt goes through Zsasz's throat and he falls to the ground next to the tatted chick with the fucked up hair, Helena finally breathes a sigh of relief. She’s done. All the training and the scars and the pain and the things she had to fight to get to this moment. She killed Galante, his firing squad, and the douche she just nailed. She’s about to leave when the cop starts talking about how Roman Sionis was the one behind everything. Turns out she’s not done. One more name on her list and she can finally let go of the past. Her family avenged, her dad and mentors satisfied. She can finally rest.

“Hey, guys, I think you should see this,” the kid says. They gather around the window the cop came in from.

“We’re fucked,” Helena says out loud. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say because everyone glares at her. But she’s not wrong. “He… he bought himself an army.” There’s a whole horde of grunts out there… and not all of them are human. She doesn’t know if anyone else can see them, but there’s some lumbering Laistrygonian giants, wielding their clubs. There’s some basilisks too, but Helena’s never seen them look like that before. They look like a hybrid between a human and a normal basilisk. Men with green skin and scales and long forked tongues that taste the air like a snake. There’s only two of them that she can see and she prays they don’t have the same ability to spit fire and venomous touch. She’s still got the acid burn on her left thigh from when she was pitted against one in training.

She blinks back into the conversation just as Harley, the crazy clown, talks about working together. It’s a stupid idea. These mortals will be taken out in an instant if they go up against the giants and the basilisk-human hybrids. And they’re fucked without weapons. Helena’s got her knives and her Hephaestus-made crossbow and anything else she’s got stored in various pockets and quivers but those things can’t last against all these guys.

When Harley says she has firepower, she actually means an empty cupboard full of nothing and a trunk full of old junk. But there’s a few guns in there and a baseball bat that Dinah, the one the kid seems to trust the most, is looking at like it’s her last meal. It’s the same way Helena looked at the crossbow before she was allowed to touch it. 

Harley keeps talking and it reminds Helena of her little brother on a sugar high. Pino would go on these rants when he’d have too much sugar and it seems an excitable Harley is exactly the same. It still hurts to think about him, how he’ll be forever young, but she’s avenged him and the rest of her family, so it hurts a grain less. Only one more heart to stop now.

Dinah smacks the baseball bat against her palm and turns to Helena. She’s found some kind of makeup kit in the trunk and, well, Adrestia taught her that using your ‘womanly charm’ is yet another part of Helan’s arsenal. The monsters won’t care about that, just the scent of a demigod and getting paid to crush skulls, but the humans might. They all look like men behind the masks. Right build, right height, right shape.

“What the hell is up with this bow and arrow shtick?” Dinah asks.

“It’s not a _fucking_ bow and arrow,” Helena snarls in response. She’s been taught to differentiate between weapons. Would get put up against the ones she couldn’t figure out until she could name them all. She knows what an arrow feels like sinking into her thigh vs a bolt from a crossbow to her back. Arrows can only go so deep as the archer’s power. Bolts can go all the way through depending on the crossbow’s calibrations. “It’s a crossbow. I’m not twelve.”

But Dinah’s laughing and the light glints of her septum piercing and the little golden rings and wires in her locs. Helena growls as something begins happening to her stomach when Dinah smiles. “I love this chick,” she says without a hint of malice, facing the others, “she’s got rage issues.”

“I DON'T HAVE RAGE ISSUES!” Helena shouts as she grips one of the grenades she picked out from Harley’s trunk. She’s already got a few clipped to the cross strap over her shoulder. Laistrygonian giants might be really fucking stupid, but they’ve got thick skin. One of the ones Adrestia made her fight had tons of tattoos and the hardest fist that’s ever hit her face. They’re built like a brick shithouse, but hopefully these extra large grenades can hurt them.

“Psychologically speaking,” Harley’s voice pops out of nowhere, a mallet thrown over her shoulder, “vengeance rarely brings the catharsis we hope for.” Her ratty pigtails bounce when she moves her head. Helena busies herself with clipping the last grenade to her body as Harley keeps talking, Dinah breathing an agreement in a way that makes a shudder slide down her spine. “Are we ready? Bad guys, just outside.”

While the others are grabbing the last of their weapons, Helena descends to the floor. She pulls a piece of chalk out of her pocket, sits on her heels, and begins to draw.

“What the fuck are you doing, Bertinelli?” Renee hisses, but Helena ignores her. She makes the symbol of her father, what others might see as the symbol for male, and begins to whisper a prayer. She does this before any mission, ever since she learned of her true heritage. She digs into the same pocket as the chalk and finds one of her special crossbow bolts, those she makes specifically for this purpose. She puts it in the middle of the circle, mumbles a few words in Greek, praying to Ares for a successful and swift victory, to Thanatos for death to those who wish to harm her allies, and to Athena for a plan to get Cass out of here alive. Then she lights the bolt of fire.

“Holy shitballs,” Harley says and Helena jumps because the clown’s right next to her. “Why’d you do that? Is it part of your assassin ritual?” Helena scowls at her as she stands and rubs out the mark on the floor. “We need every bit of ammo you have. So whatever you did better have been worth it.”

She keeps her mouth shut, but she knows it will be.

* * *

Helena feels most alive when she’s in battle. All of the awkwardness that comes from being isolated from society falls away. She feels more in tune with her body when she gets into this headspace, mindless as she moves from one weapon to the next, from one grunt to the next. Adestria always talks about how fighting is a dance and the one who leads always comes out on top. Not that Helena knows how to dance, but it can’t be much different than fighting.

The rest of the group goes down the slide and the hair on the back of her neck because they have no idea what’s at the bottom. She hears a grunt behind her and spins to find a built man with a machete raised over his head, as if to stab her. She throws a teargas bomb behind her as she dives into the slide after Dinah. She feels the vibration of the slide as the goon follows her. She turns while sliding down and jumps up, spiders above the man and lands on him. She slides the pocket knife she has hidden in her glove into her palm, twists it, and stabs the guy over and over and over.

She doesn’t take her eyes off the guy as she stabs him one more time at the bottom of the slide. He jolts, gives a little gurgle, and dies. Helena stands up to find Dinah staring at her, hand on the trigger of her gun, clutching the baseball bat in the other. She climbs off the man and finds everyone staring at her. Dinah’s jaw’s a little dropped and there’s a flutter of pride and something else in Helena's chest at the look.

“What?” Helena asks as she runs her finger through her hair. She shifts on her feet, reaching for the crossbow clip on her glove, ready to snap it into place. They’re all staring at her and she has no idea why. She doesn’t like it when people stare because it means attention and attention means it’s harder to sneak up on someone and kill them.

“You are so _cool_.” Harley breathes the statement like it’s a secret and Helena puffs up with pride. No one’s ever called her cool before. Well, no one’s called her anything before, really. Dinah straightens up and smiles, something sparkling in her eyes that Helena doesn’t have time to deconstruct at the moment. She tries not to notice how Dinah’s yellow shirt doesn't seem to fit particularly well, her black bra not as supportive as Helena would recommend for someone so well-endowed. 

Helena shakes her head to rid herself of any distracting thoughts. She never thought a person could be so distracting, but then she sees Dinah out of the corner of her eye as Harley leads them further into the decrepit fun house.

She eventually finds herself back to back with Dinah, the other woman’s face contorted into a beautiful snarl. In the strange carnival room light, the gold in her hair and her fingers glint. She looks beautiful as she busts kneecaps and heads, kicks high in those tight pants. A Laistrygonian giant stomps towards the two of them, raising the club they seem to favor over its head, mouth open in a shout. 

“Get down,” Helena hisses as she pulls the safety pin of a grenade out with her teeth. Dinah spins to meet her, locs brushing against Helena’s skin, before her eyes lock onto the explosive and she ducks. Helena chucks it at the giant and, because it's a dumb brute that has a brain the size of a hazelnut, the monster actually drops his large club to see what he's caught. Dinah makes a noise of confusion before Helena pulls her down, covering Dinah's head, when the grenade blows up in the giant's face. It knocks out a few of the human grunts too and the now headless giant wobbles for a few seconds before he dissolves into sulfurous yellow dust. 

Leaving Dinah to fight off more human goons, Helena looks around and tries to see where she can be helpful. She’s about to jump in with Harley, who seems to be having a blast bashing heads and kneecaps, when she hears, “let me go!” from somewhere to her left.

She turns to find Cass being dragged away and, when she squints, she sees the forked tongue and the scales. A third basilisks-human hybrid that must have slipped through with the rest of the masked grunts. She aims her crossbow and fires, snarls when the bolt goes right through the asshole’s head and it goes the same way the giant did. You don’t fucking touch kids, even if they did swallow a whole ass diamond.

“Come on. Come on." She grabs Cass’ arm and hauls her away toward a corner where there’s some decrepit heads that might have been on a ride at one point. But now there’s pain peeling and the metal rusting. "It’s okay, come on.” She can feel some blood dripping from the side of her head, a few cuts on her arm, but all her focus is on the kid. She can hear the fight going on, keeps her focus between Cass and the others. “You shouldn’t have to see this,” she says softly. Cass is shaking like a newborn foal, her eyes wide and scared. Helena has known Cass for less than an hour, but she's seen how tough the girl is. For fucks sake, Cass pointed a gun at all of them as soon as she could get her hands on one. However, this is something no kid should have to see. Helena reaches into the same pocket as her chalk and sacrificial bolts and pulls out Pino’s toy car, places it in Cass’ hand, the one bulked up by the pink cast. Helena stares down at the car, her heart heavy, but she can also feel the young girl’s confused stare, the tremble in her fingers.

“What--?”

“Hold on to this for me, okay?” Helena asks, not giving Cass time to ask questions or think. “That’s all you think about. Just close your eyes and hold it tight.” Cass curls the littlest bit of her fingers sticking out of the cast over the car, her lower lip wobbling. She’s still shaking, but she look down at the car with determination and Helena’s heart throbs for her. Cass is older than Pino by a few years, but that fear is the same. “Come on, get down.” Helena pushes Cass towards one of the empty heads. “You’ll be safe.” Cass nods and huddles down. Helena spares her one last glance and nods to herself, watching the girl clutch the car to her chest, before she goes back to the fight.

Seeing Cass hiding away, clutching Pino's purple car. It hurts. She remembers the look on her brother's face right before they started shooting. Now she's standing here and looking at a child that shouldn't be messed up in all this but she is. Rage fills her, something hot and heavy and snarling in her gut. Like she's burning from the inside. She can feel some of the mortal bad guys surround her, trying to get to Cass, so she makes sure her back is to the wall, her vulnerable spots pointing towards Cass so nothing can sneak up on them, and pulls up her crossbow. She's only got two pouches of bolts left before she'll have to move to knives, but that doesn't bother her. Jumping from weapon to weapon was a skill taught to her in Sicily. Cass needs her now, so she shakes out of the memory and points her crossbow at the nearest mortal. 

She doesn’t notice it at first because she’s sunk too far into the rage. It’s lapping at her, bubbling inside her, and she clicks her crossbow back into a hairclip, puts it in her hair, and pulls out her knife. She dips and slashes, takes them out one after another. Her eyes slip closed and she uses all of her other senses. Helena remembers when Phobos would blindfold her and then he and Deimos would attack her until she could use all her senses-- extra senses once she became thirteen and gained her demigod powers-- until she could fight back.

“Use the Force!” someone that sounds like Cass shouts at her. She has no idea what that means, but she keeps her eyes closed and her senses open.

“Holy shit!” Harley’s shriek echoes around the room and Helena opens her eyes just in time to stick her knife into someone’s throat. Blood splatters across her face and she snarls. She’s still angry-- “frothing at the mouth like a rabid wolf,” Adrestia would say-- but she spins to find out where Harley’s voice is coming from. “You’re on fire, Helena.” She notices what Harley’s talking about when she looks down. There’s a ring of blue fire surrounding her and she can actually feel it being fueled by her rage and turning that into more power behind her punch, sense more open. Adrestia calls it Ares’ Blessing and it’s only happened one time before, when she was fighting her “exit exam” Hydra before she came back to the States. It makes sense her father would bestow it upon her to help Cass. He might be an asshole, but he detests knowing there are children of war.

The group eventually comes together again. No more grunts come after them, so they head towards the front of the carnival attraction. Renee’s smiling in the front, Harley swinging her mallet that still has some shards of bone dripping off it. Helena’s body is still tingling, settling down from the overload of Ares’ Blessing. Or it might be that Dina’s smiling at her with those sparkling eyes, the sides of her shirt almost all the way open to show off her simple black bra that shows off her assets. Not that Helena’s noticed or anything.

Renee laughs at something Dinah says and suddenly a shot rings out and the cop staggers back. Black Mask, Roman Sionis, holds up a gun and Helena flies forward to protect as Dinah helps Harley haul the other woman against the wall, pulling open her shirt to check her bullet wound.

She takes out a charging Laistrygonian giant before she hears the kid screaming again. She turns quickly, ripping her knife across the giant’s stomach as she does, to see the other two basilisk-human hybrids dragging a kicking and screaming Cass away. More goons converge on the mouth as Dinah picks up one of the dead men's guns. Helena and Dinah each take a side of the mouth, crossbow and gun going off but they can’t get to Cass. The hybrids are too fast and Renee’s breathing hard somewhere behind them, Harley’s whispering something to her in that strange accent of hers.

There’s shards of rock and concrete flying off the wall as the dickheads out front shoot at them. At least there’s no more monsters, besides the basilisks that took Cass, only mortals that go down easy with one shot if she aims right. She could really use another Blessing right now, but when has Helena ever been that lucky. There’s so much shooting going on and Helena digs into her last quiver and finds one bolt left.

Dinah falls into the slight cover with her, throwing the gun she picked up to the ground with a scowl.

“I can’t get out there,” Harley says, her voice cracking. “I just need to get through.”

Dinah kneels on the ground next to Helena. Her lips pulled back in a snarl, her brow furrowed like she’s contemplating something. Her shirt’s slipped again and Helena wonders if she even owns an outfit more suited for fighting. 

Harley looks at them, one hand pressed to Renee’s ribcage, the other on the gun shoved into the back of her pants. That can’t be safe. “We gotta go; we gotta move.” Her eyes flit from each of them to the car being revved outside. “They’re in the car. They’re getting away.” There’s that crack again. Cass’ voice echoes through the corridor, screaming for the hybrids to get her go. Helena wonders if they understand English, because most monsters only know Greek and Latin. She wonders if Roman is a demigod or if he’s a human with Clear Sight. If he’s a demigod, they’re all fucked. They're so much harder to kill.

Helena leans over the alcove covering and shoots one of the goons as he pops out from behind a car door. She tries for her quiver, but there’s nothing left. “Shit, I’m out,” she says as she snaps her crossbow back into a clip and puts it in her hair.

Dinah falls to her knees and Helena can feel one hand on her boot, as if the other woman needs the support. She’s never been suport for someone and she doesn’t know how she feels about it, but she doesn’t move.

“Guys, come on,” Harley’s voice finally gives. She doesn’t cry, but her eyes shimmer in the light, like the tears are there, distinct from all the glitter. “They’re closing in.” There’s a little tremble as she stands up. The janky clown might look a mess and fight like a psycho, but she really seems to care about the kid to get this emotional.

Helena looks down at Dinah and across at Renee. It’s like they’re having a silent conversation that she and Harley aren’t privy to. Dinah lets out a kind of strained groan and Helena worries for a moment if she’s been wounded.

“Canary,” Renee says, “you know what you have to do.”

Dinah nods, standing up and leaning against the wall for a moment next to Helena, taking a deep breath before she straightens her spine. “Cover your ears.” She looks confident and if Helena wasn’t so married to the mission, she’d be able to pick apart this weird feeling in her stomach when she sees Dinah with a determined sparkle in her eye as she steps forward. She stops to point and glare at Harley as she says, “you _better_ get her back.”

Confusion bubbles up in Helena’s chest as she watches Dinah run directly into the line of fire. She reaches out with a hand but, out of the corner of her eye, Renee shakes her head and covers her ears. Helena does the same as Harley gets to her feet, stabilizes herself on her roller skates. She pushes off the wall and uses the wall to guide her to the mouth, right behind the lip. Dinah bounces on her toes for a second, as if getting ready for something, before she charges forward and screams.

Helena can see the soundwaves as Dinah screams and screams and screams. The men go flying, cracking their backs on different equipment and derelict amusement rides, on shards of glass, their braids bleeding out of their ears. It sounds like a million harpies dying at the same time and, even though she’s covering her ears, she can still feel the reverberation inside her skull. It’s almost worse than the sounds on gunshots Phobos and Deimos made her listen to at night in a dark room for the first year she was on the farm. She watches through squinted eyes as Harley wheels herself into the path of the sonic soundwave, covers her ears, and uses the wave to propel her towards the car and out of the carnival area.

Dinah stops screaming and seems to deflate in front of them. She goes down like a princess, with a little noise, a little last exhale. Renee grabs Dinah's abandoned gun and holds it out in front of her like it’s still got ammo, Helena doing the same thing with her crossbow. The cop scouts in front while Helena goes to Dinah. She checks her pulse at her neck and ignores the way goosebumps erupt on her skin, focused on making sure Dinah’s okay.

Renee comes over, announces that all the goons are dead, and tells Helena she’s going to bring Dinah’s car around. Once she does, she comes back for the two of them.

“Can you get my jacket?” Helena asks. Renee gives her an “are you fucking kidding me” look, but Helena needs it. “It’s got the keys to my bike. I’m gonna go see if I can catch up to Harley.” The cop rolls her eyes and grumbles, but she heads inside anyway.

While she’s there, Helena gets up on one knee and gathers Dinah into her arms. She’s so soft and plush where Helena’s all muscle and nothing else. With that scream, Helena wonders if the woman in her arms is a demigod. She knows metahumans exist, but Dinah’s power makes her feel something else. Helena shuffles Dinah in her arms as she rises to her feet with only the tiniest amount of struggle. She heads over to the car and, if the silence after the scream wasn’t so prevalent, she wouldn’t have heard Dinah’s tiny sigh as she curls her fist against Helena’s sternum. She feels something flutter in her ribcage, feels it in her stomach and she doesn’t want to let Dinah go, but she has to because she’s got to go after Harley. She places Dinah in the passenger seat, reaches around her to click the seatbelt in place.

“Helena?” Dinah mumbles. “What... what happened?”

Helena stiffens because she’s still leaning across Dinah, her breath brushing across the back of her neck. Dinah reaches out to touch the skin of her wrist, soft as a butterfly's wing, and it makes her muscles tense for a moment. It’s the softest touch she’s experienced since her parents kissed her goodbye on her way to school the day her family was murdered.

“I’m going to go after Harley,” Helena responds softly. “She’s gonna need backup. And I can get there faster on my bike than in the car.” Renee comes out of the mouth of the Booby Trap with Helena’s jacket, still grumbling. She tosses the fabric at Helena, who catches it without looking, eyes still locked with Dinah’s.

“If you don’t leave now, you’re not gonna catch up with her,” Renee says as she gets into the driver seat.

“Right.” Helena nods and slaps the window sill of the Convertible. “Hopefully, we’ll meet up with you once we get Cass… or die trying.” 

Dinah looks at her with wide eyes and Helena tries to give her a smile, but she doesn’t know if her mouth can do that anymore, so it feels more like a grimace. “Helena,” she calls, wrapping her hand around her wrist, “please, be safe.”

Helena, not knowing what to say, nods. She can still feel the brand of Dinah’s hand, even as she burns rubber in her race to catch up with Harley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully, you guys liked the spin on the scenes in the movie, because of course, I had to add the demigod stuff in there. 
> 
> I hope you also liked the small Dinah/Helena moments scattered throughout. Our girl's caught a bug and she doesn't know what to do with it!
> 
> Let me know in the comments if you want to see anything in particular with the addition of the PJO stuff Helena's got going on. Anything post-movie in particular!
> 
> Next time we get margaritas, Harley steals Dinah's car, and we might get another Dinah/Helena moment!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the chapter!

After Helena crashes her motorcycle, Renee stops to pick her up. She vaults over the door and into the backseat and the three of them race off to try to find Cass and Harley. 

“Harley!” Renee shouts through the fog as she runs down the pier, Dinah and Helena behind her. The statues are creepy as fuck and look so real that Helena wonders if this is where Medusa keeps her trophies. 

It’s hard to see through the fog, but Harley’s response of, “we’re okay,” leads them to where she stands with Cass. There’s a broken safety rail and bits of what must have been Sionis floating in the water below. 

Renee puts a reassuring hand on Cass’ arm. “You okay?”

The young girl is still trembling, one hand clutching Harley’s arm. “Yeah,” she breathes in the silence of the pier. The body parts sink and Dinah reaches out to put her hand on Cass’ back. 

“He’s gone,” Helena breathes. Her shoulders relax and her brain finally catches up with that statement. Sionis is gone. There’s no one left. She’s finally avenged her family. Harley hums in agreement, a smile on her face.

“Good,” Renee says as she spits at the water. There’s a few shark fins now, circling the body, blood spreading across the surface. “Fuck that guy.”

Helena can’t stop smiling. Well, she can’t stop staring at the carnage and her face hurts in the same way it did when Harley said that she killed Zsasz, when Dinah told her to be safe and she tried to smile. 

“Yeah…” Harley agrees as she swings her mallet. “Tacos?”

* * *

The diner Renee drives them to at Harley’s direction is a brightly lit Mexican-style diner. Helena keeps an eye on Harley because the woman behind the counter isn’t human. She’s one of the more neutral monsters. Walking past the kitchen, she could see a woman’s upper half and a snake’s lower half. Her tongue flicks out as she tastes whatever she’s making. Harley’s tapping on the counter, waiting for the last part of their order, the margaritas, to come out. 

“No, but seriously,” Renee’s voice breaks her concentration and she turns to the ex-cop, “you were very impressive with that bow.”

Helena shifts uncomfortably on the plastic booth in the corner she occupies by herself. She always makes sure to sit in the farthest corner where she can see the door and all the different exits. No one can sneak up on her and she’s still got one hand on the knife at her hip. “Oh, uh….” 

Renee repeats herself, as if trying to get her point across, when Dinah cuts in and says, “it’s a crossbow.” She flips her locs over her shoulder, the gold glinting off the weak sun coming through the stained glass plastic stick-on pattern on the window. She’s pulled up her yellow tank top so that it sits better on her chest, over her black bra, which Helena definitely _hasn’t_ noticed. 

She sits up a little straighter, staring at Dinah, trying not to let her emotions show. That makes her vulnerable. “Thank you.”

“I got margaritas,” Harley sing-songs as she brings over the tray of alcohol. She puts two drinks down on the table in front of Renee and Cass. “You drink, right, kid?” Helena wonders if Harley’s ever interacted with a kid before, because she sure doesn’t know how they work. 

At least Renee’s smart. “I don’t think so,” she says. Renee’s not like Harley, or even Helena’s keepers, who thought it right to give her a glass of wine with every meal until she could hold her liquor.

Harley settles into the booth behind Dinah, sitting up on her knees so she can hang her hand over the side of the booth, margarita in one hand, propping her chin up with the other. Dinah takes a pull of her drink and settles back. “I love the fucking name ‘Huntress.’” 

She says it with such punch that Helena can only blink at her in surprise. “Really?” Everyone’s been calling her the Crossbow Killer, which is a bullshit name. It’s not nearly as cool as Huntress, but to hear Dinah say her chosen moniker cool makes her stomach do that weird thing again. She’s still not sure if she likes it. 

“Yeah,” Dinah says just as enthusiastically. 

Helena meets Harley’s eyes as she takes a sip. Harley might be a janky clown, but she’s also got a PhD, apparently. She’s giving Helena a smile accompanied by a nod that she can’t quite interpret, but it seems like she’s going for encouraging as she says, “oh, great name.”

She doesn’t know how to respond. Helena’s never been one to handle compliments well. She got very little from her family before they were murdered, her parents very stringent with them. And, after, none of her keepers complimented her on anything unless it was a slight nod or a cuff on the back of the head. Even Ares never gave her anything besides a ‘good job, kid’ every once in a while. She looks to Harley for help, for some reason, and finds her doing something weird with her eyes where they look like they’re trying to point to Dinah but she’s not sure if it’s a twitch from the drugs Harley must use or not. Helena picks at a napkin on the table. “Well, um, I, uh, really liked how you were able to kick so high in those tight pants.” She nods to herself, a job well done. She complimented Dinah, even with the weird thing happening in her stomach. Maybe she should stop drinking.

“Yeah, that is cool.” Harley nods, backing up Helena’s statement. 

“Thanks,” Dinah says, a little bit of color bleeding into her cheeks, before she takes another sip of her margarita.

Cass coughs and Helena looks up in time to see the kid pull Pino’s purple car out of her pocket.”Oh, um, thanks…” Cass says as she slides the car into Helena’s, “for the car.”

Once again, Helena doesn’t know what to do with herself. She’s never interacted this long with people before and, though she tries not to show it; the kid’s giving her a weird look and she can feel eyes on her. “Y-you’re welcome.” She nods, either to Cass or herself, and slips the car back into her pouch with the chalk and sacrificial bolts.

Helena takes a tentative sip of her margarita, her body tense just in case something happens, and listens with wide eyes as Harley starts talking about the kid and shitting and laxatives and prune juice. She doesn’t get it, but she remembers everyone ranting about how this kid swallowed a whole fucking diamond back at the Booby Trap. 

Cass grumbles something and goes into the bathroom and, after a few minutes, calls out for Harley. She bows as she follows Cass and says, “ladies.” Renee snorts into her second drink.

“Have fun with that,” Dinah says in a deadpan voice as she raises her glass in a toast.

Helena watches the janky clown wave her fingers at them in a sassy way. The beads knock together as she moves to the bathroom. “So, what now?” She feels uncomfortable. No more revenge. Nothing. She fiddles with her fork. Without a mission, she’s got nothing. She can’t go back to the farm, she has no place to go in Gotham. 

“Sionis is gone,” Renee says as she pushes her plate away from her, “but it’s just a matter of time before some other asshole tries to finish what he started.” Dinah nods while Helena’s brow furrows. “We gotta clean this city from the inside out.”

“Does she always talk like a cop in a bad 80s movie?” Helena asks Dinah. She remembers her father watching them late at night, listening just outside the door of his office until her mother caught her and made her go back to bed. “Or is that just me?"

Dinah snorts and she has to put her drink down. She slaps her leg and Helena’s stomach rolls at the sound. It’s like a rough music track, but still beautiful to Helena. She grimaces because she’s starting to sound like Aphrodite.

“Fuck you,” Renee says as she stands up. Helena’s shoulders stiffen. “And fuck you.” She points to Helena and then to Dinah. 

“What?” Helena sinks back into the booth. She was just making an observation; she didn’t mean to hurt Renee’s feelings.

The ex-cop chuckles. “I mean, we were amazing out there.” She holds her fist out.

“Yeah.” Dinah makes a fist and bumps it against Renee’s.

“Hell yeah!”

Helena has no idea what they’re doing, but it looks like some kind of congratulatory gesture. “I agree, completely,” she says, but it sounds awkward and stilted, even to her own ears, “so I-I’ll do that as well." Dinah chuckles and smiles at her, a soft thing that Helena wants to see again and again. Renee bumps their fists together. It’s kind of nice. The comradery she’s not had before.

“Thank you,” Renee responds.

“Right.” Helena’s fist hovers in the air between them. She doesn’t know what to do with herself. Dinah gives her a look and she puts her hand in her lap.

All of a sudden, there’s a loud screeching of tires. It’s grating and Helena clenches her teeth. She can see the shadow of a car flying around the corner.

“Whoa!” Dinah cries out as she gets to her knees in the booth, looks out the window. “Whoa, whoa!” She gestures out the window. “She stole my fucking car!”

Renee looks out the window, one hand on the booth next to Dinah. “What?”

Helena doesn’t know how to react. It’s been a long day. A long year. A long mission. This might be it. The end. She teamed up with these girls to save one kid, to kill Sionis, but Renee’s suggestion might just be a heat of the moment thing. It’s happened before, back when she was still in school. Helena, in probably a much-needed release, can’t help but laugh. It’s not just because Harley and Cass stole Dinah’s car. It feels like she’s deflating. There’s nothing left and nowhere for those built up non-rage emotions to go, so they spill out in a laugh. 

Silence makes her look up Dinah’s glaring at her with the same murder eyes as Adrestia when she’d make a misstep. Renee just looks at her like she’s in shock, her brows furrowed, like she’s trying to figure out what’s going on. 

Helena’s laugh peters out as she looks between the two of them. She clears her throat and taps her finger against the Formica. “I’m sorry.” She wilts back into her seat as Dinah and Renee start arguing about how they’re going to get home.

* * *

Dinah kicks at a can as she shoves her hands into her pockets. Helena doesn’t know what to say, so she just walks beside the songstress. Renee lived in the opposite direction, so they’d said goodbye to her at the diner. Helena now has three numbers programmed into the phone Adrestia forced her to get; Renee put her number and made Dinah do it as well. She's not sure if the ex-cop really wants them to do something about dicks who are gonna try to fill the void Sionis left in Gotham’s dark underbelly. 

Helena doesn’t know what to say to Dinah, so she just copies her and shoves her hands into the pocket of her jacket. The singer’s apartment is in the same direction as Helena’s shitty roach motel. They hadn’t really agreed to walk _together_ , it just sort of happened. Dinah still makes that feeling in her stomach a simmer instead of something that makes her sick. Watching Dinah in action… now that made the weird feeling in her chest and stomach boil. 

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Dinah asks as she flicks her locs behind her shoulder. Her rings and hair and even her septum piercing glint in the weak sunlight that always seems to peek through the clouds perpetually hovering over the city.

“Uh, I, uh,” Helena stutters over her words. It’s not like she has nothing to say. It’s that if it’s not for a purpose, what’s the point? “Well…”

“It’s okay.” Dinah puts her hand on Helena’s arm and it’s the same tingle she got when Dinah told her to be safe. It’s such a strange feeling to have in her chest and she feels her cheeks heat up. She’s still not sure if she likes this feeling, if it’s permanent, or if it’ll go away eventually.

“Sorry.” Helena steps to the side so Dinah’s hand falls between them. “I just…” She makes a distressed noise in the back of her throat. She can’t find the words and she hates it. “I…”

Dinah grabs her hand again and this time doesn’t let go when Helena tries to sidestep. “Helena, don’t give yourself an aneurysm.” She laughs and Helena can’t help but stare at her throat. It’s dark and beautiful and the sound that it can produce is almost godlike. She shakes her head, trying to get those distracting thoughts out. 

Her snake tattoo tingles and she shudders as it moves from where it usually settles on her upper thigh or hip, hidden away. She can feel as it slithers down her arm and wraps around her wrist like a bracelet of the hand that the songstress is holding. Helena prays to any god listening that Dinah doesn’t notice. It’s never moved this much, and never towards anyone. In fact, unless she’s showering, the tattoo doesn’t move at all. So this is a first.

She doesn’t say anything in response. The silence feels heavy for a few seconds, before Dinah sighs and begins swinging their hands. It was a strange feeling, one that felt like it was out of the fairytale. Helena’s never been touched this much for this long by someone who wasn’t a trainer or someone she’s fighting. 

It’s not a bad feeling, per se, but Helena’s not used to it enough to be a good one.

* * *

The warehouse that Helena buys with her inheritance money becomes not only a meeting place to plan for taking down those underbelly gangs, but also a hangout spot where they can kick back and pig out. Cass does her homework at the table in the kitchen/food area and even Bruce has his own space under the stairs leading up to the second floor, with a false grass patch and a big dog house. Helena gave Cass a debit card and took her to a gaming store, then to pick out a TV, so there’s a whole area dedicated to entertainment now. The second floor has two bathrooms and a bedroom for each person, just in case the team is too tired or Harley and Cass don’t have a place to stay. It’s like a shitty version of a mansion and all that’s missing is a pool out back; not for lack of Harley and Cass trying.

Currently, Helena’s sitting at the coffee table in front of the entertainment area, cleaning her bolts and making a few new ones. She just got in a new shipment of metal from Hephaestus, who still grumbles but gives her a discount because she’s not an asshole like her father. Cass has her feet kicked up on the side, shoving chips into her face, one orange covered hand clicking through the channels. Dinah’s in the kitchen with Renee going over plans for their next gang takedown while Harley paints her nails at the same table they’re working on. Even Bruce is snoozing in his dog house, pieces of rabbit strewn around his area from his last meal.

The silence is broken by a sharp gasp. Everyone turns to look at Harley, who blinks at them. “What?” she says in a high tone. “I just realized I haven’t gotten my egg sandwich from Sal in a long time!” She talks as if it’s the most horrible thing to ever happen.

Dinah sounds exasperated when she replies with, “you could always go get one, you know.”

“Ya know what, that’s a great idea, dollface.” There’s a sound of a chair scraping against the floor and then Harley’s heels clicking as she comes into view. 

Helena finds herself looking at a scheming Harley Quinn, eyes sparkling with mischievousness that she’s not sure she wants to be a part of. “Um….”

“Hey, Dinah,” Harley screams across the space, “mind if I borrow your girlfriend for a while?”

Helena stiffens. She won’t look over the edge of the couch at Dinah, can’t look at her. She can feel her face burning and she busies herself with putting another bolt together. Cass is making gagging noises while Renee snorts. There’s no sound from Dinah. Helena’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

When no one responds, Harley claps her hands. “Great, thanks, D.” Helena finds herself grabbed and pulled out of her chair. Her bolts, the unfinished ones that were in her lap, clatter to the ground. Cass snickers when Helena shoots a ‘help me’ at each of them in turn. Dinah won’t look at her, a blush on her cheeks to mirror Helena’s.

She gets no say as she’s guided to her new motorcycle, Harley jumping up and down in excitement because Helena hardly ever lets Harley on her bike. The clown puts on the second helmet, one that Dinah decorated with some stickers and smells like her when Helena accidentally grabs the wrong one on her way out.

“So, uh, where are we going?” Helena asks.

“To grab my favorite sandwich, duh.”

“You could have gone by yourself.”

“Naw, I needed to talk to you, Crossbow.” Harley wraps her arms around Helena’s waist and leans into her as she directs her to the sandwich shop. It’s on the opposite side of Gotham, in the same neighborhood Helena first saw Harley. Well, saw the ugliness of Harley’s shirt and her bullet going through some guy’s neck.

They pull up in front of the grungiest shop this side of Gotham. It’s got dirty windows and there’s stains of almost every color lining the doorway. As if Harley leaves her mark whenever she comes back. She flounces in, looking like a child entering a candy store.

“Sal!” Harley shouts in that high pitched annoying voice of hers as Helena makes her way until the store. There’s a man at the flat top and he’s already got two eggs on, like he saw who it was and knew exactly what was coming. “How ya doin’?”

“I’m doing--” Helena freezes. That voice is so familiar, but she can’t look up. She hasn’t heard it since her bodyguard drove her to the airport with nothing and sent her on her way. There’s a clatter and then Sal, her old bodyguard, stands in front of her. He doesn’t touch her, but she finally gets a good look at him. He still has that limp, but the Mist has been pulled back from her eyes and she can finally see that he has a limp for a reason. His shoes are actually hooves and, as she scans up to his face, she can see that he’s got horns and his irises are a green gold. 

“ _Mikrós kynigós_.” His voice sounds exactly the same as it did all those years ago. “It’s good to see you.” It’s weird to know that Ares must have put Sal in her life to watch out for her. 

“Y’all know each other?” Harley leans her elbow on the counter and her head on her fist. “How cute.”

Harley’s eyes are sparkling with something that Helena can’t interpret. “So, Sal, babe, you gonna make us two of the best sandwiches in da world?” Sal gives her a look, rolls his eyes, and goes back behind the counter. Helena can hear the clip-clop of his hooves and it’s a bit jarring.

Sal hands over their sandwiches and Helena wrinkles her nose as she watches Harley go to town on hers. It kind of makes her lose her appetite, so she hands the clown her own sandwich. “Come visit me again, _mikrós kynigós_.” Helena nods with wide eyes.

Harley makes Helena drive them to the pier. It’s not foggy this time and there’s actual sun shining down on them. Helena parks her bike at the edge and they make their way down to the edge. The sun feels warm against her back as she watches Harley settle so that her feet hang over the edge.

On the horizon, there’s a pod of hippocampi jumping in front of the slowly setting sun. Helena remembers going to the coast in the Sicilian summers, trained to fight on the beach and in the water, and to transition between them. They’re horses up top, but fish on the bottom and their scales glisten like rainbows. And, instead of a mane like a normal horse, they have fins like a swordfish running down their backs and frills down the side of their mouth, their tails made purely of water.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Harley asks, her voice soft for once. She rests her head on one of the railings, regardless of if it has rust or not, and drums her egg yoke covered fingers on the metal.

“What are you talking about?” Helena responds as she clutches the railing, back ramrod straight. She can’t take her eyes off the hippocampi but she can feel Harley’s eyes on her.

“The rainbow horse fish.”

“You… you can see them?”

“Yeah.” 

Helena's never really connected with Harley like she did with Dinah and Renee and Cass are just easy to get along with if you read enough articles on how to interact with teens. But Harley's always been an enigma. One Helena's not sure _anyone_ is going to be able to solve. Now, however, Helena finds herself looking down at the janky clown, seeing her in a new light.

“You’re a demigod?”

“Nah.” Harley waves her hand and a bit of yoke falls into the ocean. “But, according to Sal, I got the Sight. Means I can--”

“I know what it means,” Helena hisses.

It’s strange to find someone outside of her keepers and her father and Hephestus that can see the world like she does. Harley’s not a demigod, like her, but she can see the world in a way the rest of their friends can’t.

“Did you… did you always have it?” Helena picks at her cuticles, feelings an awkward yet elated feeling in her gut.

“Nope. Normal as fuck before Mista J dunked me in that vat of bleach.” She makes the same signal Cass does when she wants everyone to know someone’s crazy. “Got the Sight when I went cuckoo, you know? It’s been a blessing and a curse. Because some of J’s friends are monsters. And not the cute kind.”

Helena sighs and finally relents, sitting next to Harley. She pulls one knee to her chest and lets the other one hang over the side. “So you saw the monsters we fought at the Booby Trap?”

“Yeah, you kicked ass.” Harley looks over at her with a smirk on her face. “Dinah noticed too.”

“She did?”

“She was making goo-goo eyes at you the whole time, Crossbow!” Harley throws her hands up in the air. “Seriously, you came outta that slide stabbing, that dude. And she looked like she wanted you to shove her against the wall and fuck her right here.”

“Harley!” Helena smacks at the clown’s shoulder, but all she gets is a laugh-snort combo in return.

“I’m not lyin’, dollface.” It’s said so softly, but with such emotion behind it, that it doesn’t really sound like the perky clown anymore. Helena looks back to the hippocampi and the sunset so she doesn’t have to deal with her own feelings. “She looks at you like you’re a puzzle worth solving.”

“I don’t… I don’t know what to do with that.”

Harley taps her chin. “Well, how does Dinah make you feel? First thing that comes to mind.”

Helena conjures up Dinah in her mind and the feeling in her stomach comes back. 

“Sick,” Helena says honestly. “She makes me feel sick.”

“Uh… not the feeling I was goin’ for, ya know.” Harley actually looks worried, pulling at the edge of her shirt and getting the last bit of yellow onto it. “You… you might not wanna tell her that.”

“Not… not, uh, gross sick.” Why is it so hard to get the words out? “All jumbled, uh, like, uh, here.” She taps her stomach, rests her hands on the little bit of skin showing between her usual crop top and her pants. “I don’t… I don’t like it, but it keeps happening.”

Helena can see Harley furrowing her eyebrows and she frowns. Was that not what she was supposed to say? Harley asked for her to say the first thing that came to her mind. Dinah really did make her feel sick. 

“What makes you feel sick?”

Helena looks away and tries to think. She thinks about Dinah. Soft smile, humming a tune under her breath as she tends to do to fill the silence. Her dimple, her cheekbones, the gold wire in her locs and the rings on her fingers. Dinah in sleepwear and her new kick-ass outfit and the dresses she wears to her singing gigs.

“When she… when she smiles,” Helena says after a few minutes of silence, just listening to the waves slosh down below. “It makes my stomach turn. And she, uh, well…” Helena sighs. “She looks at me and I don’t know what to do. My stomach turns into knots and I feel sick. Like I’m nauseous, but not gonna throw up. Just… a different kind of sick.”

Harley puts a hand on her arm, her long bubblegum pink nails digging slight crescents into the skin. It’s not uncomfortable, but being touched when not in battle is still odd. Dinah’s the only person’s touch she’s been getting used to, but the songstress also knows when to keep her distance and let Helena breathe. 

“I’m gonna be real with ya, doll,” Harley says as she taps her nails against Helena’s skin. “You got yourself a crush.” Her brows furrow when Helena looks down at her. “Never heard someone describe it in that way, though.”

“What?” Helena stiffens, her hand curling into a fist.

“You like her, dumbass.” Harley rolls her eyes. “God, you think with your dad banging Aphrodite, you’d be a little more on the ball.”

“All I learned from my father was how to sever a monster’s head from its shoulders.”

“Sounds like a fun bonding time.” Harley shakes her head, pigtails bouncing. “Anyway, you might feel sick, but you like Dinah, Crossbow.” She puts her hand over Helena’s clenched fist on her thigh. “And she’s been drooling over you since the Booby Trap.” Harley stands up and holds out her hand for Helena. “Now come on.”

Harley skips all the way back to the bike and puts Dinah’s helmet back on. Helena holds one arm with the other and rubs it up and down, uncomfortable yet feeling a little lighter. “Uh, Harley?” The clown hums in response. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me ‘til you and Dinah finally do the deed.” She wiggles her eyebrows.

There’s the Harley Helena’s starting to know and like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I hope you guys enjoyed another chapter. This is the last chapter I've fully thought out. Let me know what you think!
> 
> If you guys want to see certain things in this PJO universe, please let me know in a comment below. I'm unsure if Dinah's going to be a demigod or some kind of mix, but I guess I'll see how many people want to see something like that. Please comment any requests you have below along with your comments!


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